


Aspects

by prairiecrow



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-27
Updated: 2011-07-27
Packaged: 2017-10-21 20:15:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/229316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What is truth? With Garak, the answer is seldom straightforward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aspects

Over the past two years Julian had seen many things revealed in Garak's expressive face during their lunches: friendliness, teasing, surprise, amusement, amazement, disbelief, disapproval, rebuke. All masks laid over a fundamentally pleasant demeanour, as soft and pretty as embroidered velvet.

He was fairly sure that most of them were lies. It was the emotions he couldn't quite read, the gliding transitions between one theatrical state and the next, that he suspected might be true: the glimpses that gleamed like the edge of a straight razor, the flashes of annoyance and a predatory eagerness to engage. Those moments in their strange relationship thrilled him in ways that he found it best not to examine too closely, because he knew it would be extremely unwise to get too intimate with someone who was, at bottom, an enemy of the uniform he so proudly wore.

He'd also seen a different level of Garak's character, unveiled by pain and despair: a thing of cold steel and relentless fury, the blade unsheathed and crying for blood. He felt privileged to have gotten so near and to have survived the experience. They did not speak of it, but it lay between them nonetheless, the memory of something deeper and more real than their clever rhetorical debates in the Replimat. The memory of walking close enough to death incarnate to reach out and touch it, to feel the seductive sleekness of its coat and see the ghosts of old murders in its eyes.

But those had been extraordinary circumstances. Most of the time Garak was deliberately mild and graceful, someone who could merge into the background of station life and not catch on any sharp edges. The plump and witty little tailor, always ready with a quip or a stylish suggestion. The respectable businessman, professional and polite. Almost a cipher in spite of his charming personality. Even Julian, who had devoted considerable time and thought to penetrating that outward form, sometimes felt that he was no closer to knowing who Garak really was than a random customer who happened to wander into his shop looking for a suit. Sometimes he even wondered why he bothered when Garak seemed so determined to stonewall him at every turn.

Now, however… now. This moment. The way Garak was looking at him in the shadows, his pale gaze full of ravenous heat and his usually unremarkable face sharply sculpted by a trick of the overhead lighting, the flow of easy words for once stilled. The way he was moving in, perfectly confident. The touch of his hand on Julian's forearm, cool and electric. His eyes. Had they always concealed that quality of hungry adoration?

The hand glided around to the small of Julian's back, guiding him nearer. This, Julian thought as the predator slipped into a range where breath mingled with breath, might well be the truest aspect of Garak he'd ever seen. He had never suspected that love and terror could feel so much alike.

THE END


End file.
